A Blog about Balancing Health with a Constant Desire to Eat Cake

Layer Cakes: Tips, Tricks and Recipes

Ok but really I think cakes are awesome. I also think they’re super labor intensive so I get why people buy them instead of make them, but I really think more people should take up cake making.

This past weekend, I made three layer cakes.

So from my experience of making three cakes in a row, I wanted to share with you a few tips and tricks to making the perfect layers cakes, along with some of my favorite cake recipes.

1. Use the right cake pans.

I used to have these fancy cake pans from Sur La Table, and I’ll be honest… they sucked. My cakes were always uneven. First I thought my oven temperature was just weird, but then I moved and my cakes were still crooked. So I bought new cake pans. I bought the cheap Wilton ones at Michael’s (I say cheap because I never walk into that store without a 40% off coupon), and my cakes are perfectly even now. So my tip: go for aluminum cake pans!

Wouldn’t it suck to do all that work and have them stick to the pan? Yes. It’s happened to me, and it sucks.

Ever since, I will never make a cake without parchment paper. Honestly, my least favorite part of making cakes is this step. I feel like I’m in kindergarten cutting out parchment paper circles. But it’s a must. Just do it.

3. Bake in advance and freeze.

My cakes were all for Saturday and Sunday. I started baking on Tuesday. A cake sitting out from Tuesday til Saturday would be dry and gross, but a cake wrapped in parchment paper, double wrapped in plastic wrap then frozen, is still great for the weekend. The trick is to make sure the cake is completely cooled before you freeze it. You can flash cool it on a cooling rack in the freezer, but before you wrap it up. Just make sure it has cooled completely before you wrap it up, if not you’ll get condensation that freezes into ice. Not cute.

4. A cake without a filling is no fun.

One of the cakes I made was lemon cake with a raspberries and cream filling. The others were chocolate and banana cakes with peanut butter filling. Feel free to make your fillings a day or two in advance, cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate.

5. Leveling the cake is important

I finally broke down and bought a cake leveler. It’s a good idea to level the cakes before you freeze them. The leveler is basically a metal wire, it’s not super strong and probably won’t cut through a frozen cake. You can also just use a knife…

6. ALWAYS do a crumb coat

A fine layer of frosting before you actually frost is essential. It holds it all together and prevents you from getting a crumby cake. If your crumb coat is going on a frozen cake it’s even easier because the crumb coat gets firm faster. Once you’ve got a crumb coat, stick the cake in the freezer for a few minutes to let the coat harden before you frost. EXTRA: Put pieces of parchment paper under the cake so you don’t have to worry about a dirty plate/dish. You just pull out the pieces when you’re done frosting and you have a clean plate/cake circle!

7. Use a long knife to frost

I’m not fancy. My cakes aren’t perfect, but I think they do the job. I don’t have all those fancy spatulas you can buy to frost cakes. I use the 8″ slicer knife that came in my knife block. It’s not serrated and it’s long. Gets the job done. A small butter knife makes it hard to get smooth edges all around, so I recommend a long knife.

8. Use cake circles and boxes

To make your cakes go from homemade to slightly fancier, go to Michael’s or any cake supply store and buy cardboard cake circles and a box. I took one of the cakes to a restaurant and the waitress was surprised to find it was homemade. On that note, if you go to a birthday dinner at a restaurant, call ahead and make sure they don’t charge you to cut the cake. I had heard of corkage fees but never of cake cutting fees. Apparently it’s a thing in Hollywood. Just saying.

Remember, no matter what your cake looks like, it should taste great. So on that note, here are some of my favorite cake recipes:

I’m going to make Alexis a Ninja turtle cake using a character cake pan. Have you ever used a character cake pan? Do you have any suggestions on what to use to keep the cake from sticking when you cant use parchment paper? I can’t wait to use all your tips and try the chocolates cake recipe.

That sounds super cute! Since you can’t use parchment paper because of all the ridges (the same is true with a bundt pan), make sure you grease and flour with well. The good thing is, since you’re covering it in frosting, it’s not a big deal if some of the indents stick.

Interesting tip about the cake pans. I actually started with “cheap” Aluminum cake pans but couldn’t get straight sides. I now swear by Parrish Magic pans. But I wholeheartedly agree with your cake choices! Will have to try the RUM cake but I have baked and love the other three cakes.

Interesting! I’ve never tried Parrish Magic Pans, but I just googled them and they are aluminum (same material as my “cheap” wilton ones that work great), whereas the fancy ones I had from sur la table were not aluminum. So maybe it just has to do with how aluminum distributes heat?

The rum cake is awesome!! Definitely recommend. Thanks for commenting!